The Year In Review

This year, I’ve attempted to post somewhat funny, slightly exaggerated, overly truthful, and mostly wholesome stories.

I am sick of being bombarded with bad news. There are just as many good things happening as there are bad things.

Should we know when bad things happen? Sure. But receiving breaking news every few minutes isn’t healthy. And somebody’s making money, ensuring you lose your sanity.

I don’t enjoy receiving news about people whose importance is inflated exorbitantly. I am tired of reading stories about celebrities.

I don’t care if someone’s poodle inherited a million dollars. Or that there’s another romance brewing among the extremely wealthy.

I don’t care that a brute beast of a man scored another touchdown or field goal or dunked a basketball the same way they’ve been dunking basketballs for the last thirty-five years. Or that another team won another trophy.

I expect a man whose only job is to bulk up and throw a ball to do so very well. I expect nothing less.

Here’s a spoiler: someone else is going to win another trophy in another Final or World Series. Someone else will break another record five or ten years from now. And if they don’t, fine. It doesn’t matter.

My life will not change one iota either way.

I can’t care. I don’t have any leftover care to place on things that don’t matter.

I think we place our priorities in places that don’t give back. If I place my full attention at any given moment on something other than my family, there’s no long-term satisfaction for me. Those accomplishments provide nothing to me. Their accomplishments take something from me and my family — my money, my time, and my attention.

They leave me feeling entertained, but only briefly. Then, at some point, I have to give again to get another very brief moment of entertainment. It keeps going.

But if I put my priorities only on my family and friends and invest in them, I can be fulfilled as a husband, father, and friend. And it pays dividends.

The compound interest in healthy relationships is astronomically greater than superficial one-way obsessions.

I’m not saying that we shouldn’t have interests. Or that we shouldn’t like or enjoy some harmless things. But maybe we shouldn’t put so much passion and purpose into them.

I believe in giving 100%. But in some things, giving 100% means somewhere else or something else more important is taking a hit.

Are we putting our priorities in the correct place?

I wanted to put my priorities on recognizing things that happened throughout our daily lives. I also wanted to share things that might make people chuckle.

So, with these daily posts, I wanted to focus on something more local, not national or international, and not the latest car wreck or criminal arrest.

Things that matter to me, like noticing the changing seasons, our boy’s acrobatics, focusing on having the correct perspective, or my most embarrassing moments currently and from years past. Did you laugh? Well, then it mattered. A little bit, anyway.

I don’t know if I progressed in my writing skills. I’ve learned throughout the year that excellent writing is subjective. I could diagram a sentence with my eyes closed, but if I didn’t connect with an audience, it mattered very little how well I wrote.

I don’t want to connect with only your intellect;
I want to connect with your heart.

I hope to keep connecting with every future post.

to be continued,
– Caleb